EU adopts new return rules: What rejected asylum seekers should know

Berlin, 2 October 2026. On 1 October the Council of the EU gave its final green light to new rules for more effective returns of people with no legal right to stay in the EU. The regulation is due to come into force in the coming weeks. Because it is a regulation rather than a directive, it applies directly in all 27 member states. As one German legal commentary notes, no national transposition is needed. For the first time, EU law will give a common framework to what has been 27 different national systems.

Who is affected in Germany?

The people most directly affected are those the law calls vollziehbar ausreisepflichtig, meaning enforceably obliged to leave. This includes rejected asylum-seekers whose cases have ended in the courts. At the end of June 2026, around 259,000 people in Germany were obliged to leave. About 77 percent of them (199,271 people) hold a Duldung, a temporary suspension of removal. A Duldung does not cancel the obligation to leave. As the Mediendienst Integration explains, it only suspends enforcement for a time. Many holders have lived in Germany for years.

For these people, the new regulation sharpens almost every pressure point of the system.

What changes

1. Duties to cooperate, with penalties. The regulation obliges people with no right to stay to leave and to cooperate with the authorities. According to the Council, failure to cooperate can lead to sanctions, including reduced benefits and allowances, refusal of incentives for voluntary return, financial penalties, or even criminal sanctions where national law provides for them. Reports on the earlier political agreement also mention confiscation of documents. The regulation also allows financial guarantees, regular reporting duties and an assigned place of residence to prevent people from going underground.

For many African applicants, proving identity is the hardest part. Embassies may be slow to issue travel documents, records may be lost or never existed, and some governments simply do not cooperate. Under the new regime, delay caused by a third party could easily be read as a lack of cooperation by the person concerned. This is a real risk for Nigerians, Ghanaians, Cameroonians and others, and it is where legal advice will matter most.

2. A European Return Order. Member states must use a standard form for return decisions. This gives other member states the information they need to recognise a return decision issued elsewhere. Mutual recognition remains voluntary for now and will be reassessed three years after entry into force, when the Commission may propose making it mandatory. For a rejected applicant, the practical meaning is that a German negative decision may follow them to other EU states, and onward movement will offer less protection than before.

3. Return hubs outside the EU. This is the most contested element. The rules allow member states to send people who have received a return decision to return hubs in non-EU countries. This requires an agreement or arrangement with the country concerned, which may only be concluded with a state that respects international human rights standards and the principle of non-refoulement. Unaccompanied minors are excluded.

Two points matter for African readers. First, people can be sent to a country that is neither their own nor one they have ever lived in. Legal analysts note that the text leaves open whether people stay in a hub permanently, and that it allows both short stays pending removal and longer ones. Second, Germany is already part of the conversation. The African Courier has reported on EU talks with Rwanda about such centres, with Germany among the participating states. Which countries sign up, and on what terms, will decide whether the “human rights” condition has real content.

4. Longer detention. For people deemed a security risk, member states may impose an indefinite entry ban, or detain them for longer than 24 months. Rights groups say the regulation also extends detention more broadly. PRO ASYL, for example, describes two years in deportation detention, or even an unlimited period, and says protest came from nearly 200 organisations. The exact limit for ordinary cases is worth checking against the final text.

The government’s case, and the critics’

The Council’s argument rests on numbers. Irish Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, whose country holds the Council presidency, said that around two in three people ordered to leave the EU do not actually leave, and that the new rules will help member states carry out swift returns. The Council adds that all return measures must respect fundamental rights.

Critics see it differently. They argue that the regulation pushes through harsh measures with the support of the centre-right and the far right in Parliament, which adopted the text on 17 June with a centre-right majority including some Liberals. The deeper objection is that many people with a Duldung are not defying the law. They stay because removal is impossible, whether for lack of documents, because a country will not take them back, or for medical or humanitarian reasons. Detention and sanctions do not remove those obstacles.

What happens next

The regulation will be published in the Official Journal and takes effect the day after publication. Some provisions, including those on return hubs, apply immediately, while others that need preparation apply one year later. Germany will have to adapt its own residence law, including the Duldung system, to the new framework.

What affected people should do now

• Do not ignore authorities’ letters or appointments. Under the new rules, missed deadlines can have consequences.
• Document every effort to get identity/travel papers. Keep copies of embassy requests, emails and appointment records. This is the evidence of cooperation.
• Get individual legal advice early. Whether there are grounds for a Duldung, a hardship case, or another residence route depends on the case. Counselling services and refugee councils can help, as can specialist lawyers.
• Be wary of “voluntary return” offers without advice. Incentives may be withdrawn from people judged uncooperative, so the timing of the decision matters.

The new regulation does not decide any individual case. But it widens the state’s powers over people who have already lost their asylum cases, and it does so at a moment when Germany’s own system holds hundreds of thousands in legal limbo. How far fundamental rights actually constrain these powers will be settled in the courts and in the return-hub agreements still to come.

Sola Jolaoso